SteelPhase

4 minutes ago, phrunt said:

That's strange, when I went there is was dead quiet, I don't remember what time of year it was but it was a quiet little town back then that seemed to mostly thrive on their fruit growing, I lived in Melbourne for a while but that was some time ago now, I guess times change and everything gets busier so what I know is very outdated.   Nothing beats local knowledge so I'd be listening to Steelphase ?

Ripcurl and Quiksilver are Surfboard and clothing brands Mitchel,  I always thought Quiksilver was American, it went bust in 2015 or 2016 from memory.

If you come off season it is quiet. Thats when its at its best lol. Or when the southerlies are blowing hard as it turns the surf into a giant washing machine.

Quicksilver was founded in Torquay but then moved to Huntington Beach. They still have a huge complex in Torquay as do Rip Curl.

44 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Keep in mind population Mitchel, Ocean Grove has a population of about 14,000 people in the entire area, Chances of good finds on a beach like that are pretty slim but you never know your luck, you might be the first to bother trying .  I know the small population problem all too well ? You may find enough to buy a drink!   It's not going to be like beach detecting in California!

Unless you detect the main city beaches you might find your time best spent prospecting.

Ocean Grove/Barwon Heads is a huge tourist destination. 1/2 of Melbourne turns up during summer, Easter and long weekends. (Holiday times are when I prefer to be up bush. No parking to be found anywhere at the shops, too much traffic etc).

We have Torquay and Bells Beach just down the road with some of the best surf in the world. The home of Rip Curl and Quicksilver.There are 4 caravan parks, hundreds of holiday rental homes and loads of camp grounds. The camp grounds have been operating since the early 1950's.  Also we have the Bellarine Peninsula (Clifton Springs, Drysdale etc) 10 mins away which was the site of early 1900's resorts, old military camps etc.

There are miles of beaches so if you wanted to hit the beach I can join you with my Nox. There is also the Barwon River which is a very fast tidal system so the sand is moving all the time. Only takes a day or so of southerly winds and a section of beach will be re-moved and dumped in another location.

Wicked campers are a bit of a no no. There has been a huge backlash against what has been written on some. A lot of caravan parks etc wont allow them to stay any more.

Staying in the bush is a good proposition though and you dont really need a 4x4 as most goldfields are accessible by 2wd. I used to drive my 2wd Mercedes Vito Van through all the tracks (often off the tracks) and never got stuck once.

There are often public areas in the small towns close to the goldfields where you can get water etc. Some even have showers. Its not like WA where you're in the middle of nowhere. Generally your only, at most, 1/2hr from a small town. 

It will really come down to your budget and how much comfort you want. I've even just used a swag in the middle of winter. 

16 hours ago, mn90403 said:

A couple of days ago I pulled the trigger on a solo trip to Australia, Melbourne and Victoria to be exact.  I have the Visa.  I have a Miner's Right.  I'll be there from Thursday morning 8:30AM the 9th of May thru Thursday morning the 30th of May which will make for 20 days of detecting.  It says the highs will be in the high 60s and lows in the 50s.  The sun will rise about 7:30 and set about 5.  There seems to be a fair amount of rain for the month.

I've been reading Fred's books.  He has one of Doug Stone's which is the Gold Atlas of Victoria.  There are also many online resources and several of you here have some great suggestions for me.  My itinerary is open for some nugget prospecting days and a couple of beach days.

My tentative plan would be to get off the plane, rent a vehicle and head to Bendigo area for a motel and then be ready for a hunt the next day.  I might even be up for a hunt the day I arrive ... possibly at a beach.

I'm sure I'll be meeting up with some of the forum members when I'm there so let's just see what happens.

Mitchel

Give me a shout when you're here. There are plenty of other goldfields away from Bendigo that havent been hit quite as hard. I can point you towards a few and maybe even manage to get out myself for a swing.

4 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Kayak just told me I could get to Melbourne (and back ... haha) for around $550 in May!

Maybe when I see Nurse Paul he'll ...

It's up to me to pull the trigger on this trip or 'no trip' event.

Mitchel

If you are going to Melbourne the Golden Triangle is only an hour or so away and stretches west for about 200km. Plenty of spots to choose from.

Give me a yell if you decide to come over and I can show you a few areas. 

3 hours ago, Mike C... said:

Hi I dont have that many hours yet with the sp01-But I run mine at 2 as well because 3 seems to be a big jump in the dampering effect-I would like to have complete control over the filtering instead of the presets how hard would it be to just put a rotary pot there instead or maybe even a 3 turn pot that way we could fine tune it to our liking -Thanks for a well built product-Mike C...

Because its not really a filter the circuit doesnt lend itself to using a pot. The circuit selecting the bands doesnt just rely on changing values of resistance. There are numerous components that need to be switched to select each one of the 3 bands.

The damping observed is really only a by product of not having the optimum band selected but customers have found it useful when they encounter very hot ground. It can be used in addition to the detector controls to quieten the signal.

Well I can certainly clear it up a little without giving away too many secrets. 

As you said before, the term 'filter' isnt entirely accurate in this situation but it was the easiest for people to understand (and short for labeling purposes). The sP01 works by basically 'squeezing' a section of the signal (a bit like an audio compressor) which will in effect put an edge on faint broad signals. It does also amplify the signal but thats secondary. Now the section that needs to be altered will vary with the threshold tone that the user has set. The 'filter' switch selects a band of frequencies to manipulate. These bands do overlap so if you are not using the optimum band for your threshold tone, it has the effect of damping the signal slightly. 

Hopefully that explains it a little for you.

On another note - I have a friend who does tuition on the 7000 in Western Australia and used to run the minimum threshold/high sensitivity (Bogenes settings) - very similar to what you're running. Not long ago he spent a lot of time doing testing and found that using minimum threshold he was missing some difficult targets ie thin wiry gold set vertically etc. He found that by running threshold at 3 or 4 he still had the advantages of low threshold but he wasn't missing targets. 

regards Pat

Well done. 

I once found a 30gm nugget down about 40cm in red clay that gave off a very warbly tone that wasn't overly loud. I usually only have those sounds with either bits of wire, bits of brass cartridge casing or just ground noise. What made it unusual was that the nugget was a solid lump and I would have thought it would have been a solid signal. I also put it down to the red clay distorting the response from the nugget.

Just goes to show that you really have to dig most targets - well at least remove a few inches -  and see how the target response changes. I'm pretty sure that most of my recent finds from supposedly 'flogged' ground have been those dismissed as ground noise by other prospectors.

My 2018 purchase was a Equinox 800. I've only used it a couple of times, and its certainly different to the gold machines I'm used too, but I love it. Just need more time to get out and use it.

You can certainly run the sP01 using the wm12 module and it works fine. Just plug the output of the WM12 module to the input of the sP01. I can supply shorter input cables (as well as curly cords) on request.

Here's some info that Nenad at Phase Technical posted regarding settings and using the sP01:

Quote

 

II used to push my Zed a bit in the settings before I incorporated an Enhancer. Now with the sP01 I find it is better to get a very stable threshold as the SteelPhase does such a good job at lifting the real faint signals.

I do a lot of tweaking during each session but my basic go to settings are:

Hot Ground: General, Difficult, Sens 6-12, Volume 9, Low Smoothing, Ground Smoothing Off

Milder Ground: High Yield, Normal, Sens 6-11, Volume 8, Low or High Smoothing, Ground Smoothing Patch Locate.

I nearly always use Semi Auto ground balance and just keep an eye on the ferrite balance.

 

Hope this helps those that are unsure of settings.

regards Pat

Well done. That's a nice speci.

Nenad at Phase Technical has done a lot more testing on a 7000 than I have. Here are the settings he uses:

"I do a lot of tweaking during each session but my basic go to settings are:

Hot Ground: General, Difficult, Sens 6-12, Volume 9, Low Smoothing, Ground Smoothing Off

Milder Ground: High Yield, Normal, Sens 6-11, Volume 8, Low or High Smoothing, Ground Smoothing Patch Locate.

I nearly always use Semi Auto ground balance and just keep an eye on the ferrite balance.

Also like my sP01 on Filter 2, unless on the rare occasion I may be in High Smoothing then I'll use Filter 1."

5 hours ago, Northeast said:

 

 I am wondering how it puts an edge on 'target signals' that are true, actual signals from metallic objects yet doesn't put a similar edge on ground noise? 

 

 

Ok I cant give away all the secrets but if I could completely eliminate the issue of ground noise I'd be rich. 

The sP01 will enhance a little ground noise. Unfortunately thats the nature of the beast but because it will enhance those deep faint signals, you can back the gain/sensitivity off a little which will quiet the machine with regard to ground noise, without loosing any relative depth. You can also run higher smoothing/ lower stabilizer.

3 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

I'd be very interested to read how the sP booster manages to magically do that? No offence Pat but this kind of rhetoric seems more akin to devining with a forky stick than amplified audio. 

Folks because I make a competing product I've kept away from this type of discussion, at the end of the day they are all audio amplifiers. A good one increases the loudness of the audio with minimal distortion and clipping giving the user a finer resolution of control via the volume pot. The volume control on the Minelab units are very coarse, once you get above certain point they clip, a good booster helps a lot to avoid this.

I have a sP booster and it has a nice mellow sound but is heavily filtered, I've used it with headphones and speakers and preferred it for headphone use. I'm not a fan of the aluminium box because the GPZ can smack it at a great distance, but all in all it's a really nice booster.

Steve I know this post is a little inflammatory but felt it needed to be said, especially on here. 

JP

Hey JP

No offense taken and  no magic either. I fully respect you as a prospector and would love to do a training day with you.

My electronics background is working with, repairing and designing audio electronics so I know by using a form of audio compression you can put an edge on any signal. Although its labeled 'filter' it doesn't really filter as such. It selects a band of frequencies to compress. Unfortunately I should have called it 'mode' rather than filter, but it is what it is. It is primarily designed for headphone use as I feel with using speakers I lose a little sensitivity due to background noise. The B&Z would be as good (maybe even a little louder) when using speakers. 

Be great to catch up one day in person

regards Pat

4 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Is it difficult to get one in NZ, would I just order off your site? 

You should be able to order directly from the steelphase website. NZ is set up in the shipping section but if you have an issue just msg me and I can do an order manually for you.

There is a big difference between the sP01 enhancer and the current range of audio boosters on the market.

All of them will amplify the signal making feint targets louder. The difference is that the circuitry in the sP01 also puts more of a sharper 'edge' on target signals making them easier to hear over threshold, ground noise etc. This makes it easier to hear deep targets that only give a very slight change in threshold.

Glad you like the sP01. Its been very successful over here in Oz. The biggest piece found (that I know of anyway) using the sP01 on a GPZ7000 with 19" coil, was a 68oz nugget. 

We have lots of success stories on our Facebook page if others want to see results. I am still in the process of putting up a gallery page of photos people have sent me, but its well over 200 photos now so I'm a little behind.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here or through the Facebook page.

The picture isn't of the guy that found the nugget. Its a promo photo for the shop (The Prospectors Pick) and Minelab. The guy that found it wants to remain anonymous. He was also using a sP01 enhancer at the time.

My way of looking at using any Pulse Induction machine, is dont listen for a tone. You need to concentrate on listening for a break/change in the threshold. And then (unfortunately) dig every target. Depending on shape and size, gold can sound like rubbish and visa versa.

Thanks for that guys. Hopefully I'll get out this week and give it a go.

Ok so I am primarily a gold prospector but I love stuff all shiny and new so I went and bought a Nox 800.

I haven't even had it 24hrs but have had a play in the backyard and was pretty impressed with what it can pickup and the depth. A tiny bit of aluminium (a top of a small rivet) down a cpl of inches gives me hope that I can probably use it out in the goldfields as well. Having to look at a screen and take not of numbers is a little different too.

But I do have a question. Having never really had a decent relic/coin detector to hunt a park or beach.... where do I actually start with regards to settings? I basically live on a beach so probably will hunt the beach and campgrounds here. I dont have a lot of time (busy making enhancers lol) so want to maximise my efficiency and not waste time so any tips/hints gratefully accepted.

Thanks Pat

On 2/26/2018 at 4:07 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Headphones do need to be wired properly in order to work with some models. This Minelab Knowledge Base article goes over the issue as relates to the CTX 3030. I believe the GPZ 7000 and possibly Gold Monster is identical in this regard. Sun Ray makes two models of Sun Ray Pro Gold headphones, the original model, and another model wired specifically to work correctly with the CTX 3030 (and other detectors also) for $5.00 more. Why not just make the one model that works with all detectors? Good question. Long story short I own two sets of the Sun Ray CTX version and they work with anything.

I think some detector headphone manufacturers have opted for the 'incorrect wiring' option in order to trigger the inbuilt amp in the GPX batteries. This can compensate for inefficient high impedance headphone drivers/inserts. It will also make the headphones appear to be louder and more brighter than those wired correctly. A little bit of slight of hand perhaps??

This of course is my opinion only and cant be backed with hard facts lol.

On the weekend I was in an area of pine plantations and detecting over where trees had been removed and the ground ripped by dozers. I flew the drone and could see colour changes of the soil (ironstone bands and old diggings that had been covered by pines). 

I then followed a gully which lead me to some diggings that I hadnt seen before and arent on maps. The drone is working out real well!

On a side note, it was quite windy and I think if I had bought the Mavick instead of the Phantom 4, I would have struggled to fly it.

Hey Reg

I have the Phantom 4 and its great over the goldfields. I just shoot it up above the treeline and have a scout around. As Im not using a 4x4, I also run it down tracks Im not sure of to see whether I will have access.

I have spotted diggings and quartz reefs that I couldnt see from the road.

I had looked at the Mavick but being smaller, its not quite as good in the strong winds that we often have once you get above the trees.

Pat

3 hours ago, Sourdough Scott said:

Yes, I find that out, AFTER I ordered the unit that they have the covers. ?

Nenad of Phase Technical has a had some cases made. I am still getting some done.